Distant relatives of King Richard III will learn today whether they have won their High Court battle with Justice Secretary Chris Grayling over where the monarch's recently-discovered remains should be reburied.

Richard's battle-scarred bones were found under a council car park in Leicester, and the current plan is for them to be reinterred at the city's cathedral.

In an unprecedented legal action, relatives who make up the Plantagenet Alliance want three judges to rule that Mr Grayling is under a legal duty to set up a wide-ranging public consultation exercise to decide where the king's final resting place should be.

The alliance has indicated it wants the remains to be buried at York Minster, claiming that was the wish ''of the last medieval king of England'', who was known as Richard of York.

But their counsel Gerard Clarke told the court at a recent hearing the alliance would be satisfied if a consultation exercise was launched, and suggested the Queen and royal household should be at the top of the list of consultees.

He said it should also include the distant relatives themselves as well as members of the public.

Mr Clarke said the issue was important as the last English king to die in battle ''is not just any old bones''.

Government QC James Eadie told the court Mr Grayling was ''under no statutory or common law duty to consult''.

Richard was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 - ending the Wars of the Roses and the Plantagenet dynasty - and his body was taken to Leicester by supporters of the victorious Henry VII and buried in Greyfriars church, now the site of the council car park.